Wednesday, April 27, 2011

"I was full of a hot, powerful sadness and would have loved to burst
into the comfort of tears, but tried hard not to, remembering something
my Guru once said -- that you should never give yourself a chance to
fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens
over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead."

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

jordan and I watch her show every week. he gives me a hard time about how similar we are in some ways. while her life is decidedly more glamorous than mine, due to her awesomeness, there have been more than a few scenes that are a little familiar.

I went to her book signing at my local B&N for her new book " A Place of Yes"

I told her that I loved her and I was pretty sure we were meant to be friends.

she agreed.

it was awesome.

there were HUNDREDS of people there and she signed every single book.

"The business of being happy requires making a conscious choice. People
think being happy will just happen to them someday, if only they do this
or that right. But it doesn't - you have to choose it. You choose
happiness, you don't wait for it to choose you."
—
Bethenny Frankel
(A Place of Yes)

Monday, April 25, 2011

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. ~Henry James

a couple weeks ago I invited the girls over for tea and biscuits

here is the table semi-set, I totally blanked taking one with everything out, but this will do

fantastic.

I am a FIRM BELIEVER in girl talk
{whatever that means to you}
its refreshing to sit down with women you admire, respect, and appreciate
and just talk
let your walls down...
or blab about the frivolous things.

I swear after every outing with these girls I come back a new woman.
uplifted/motivated/renewed

if you haven't recently I highly recommend carving out sometime to connect with the ladies in your life. just laugh and do girlie things.
it feels lovely

Thursday, April 21, 2011

today someone called me mrs. I paused for a minute and thought oh yeah, I am a mrs.
haha its almost been two years.somehow it feels like we've always been together and that we just got married yesterday at the same time.

Monday, April 18, 2011

I never understood why so many of my friends had come to me at one point or another regarding a hateful, or negative sermon/lesson given about Mormonism at their own church. I never in all my 23 years have been given a lesson or attended a meeting in which the topic or purpose was to belittle another religion. It baffles me that many others spend time and energy belittling what we believe. Maybe it's because people feel "mormons" are so different. I don't feel all that different from my friends and neighbors. I think for the most part its easy/fun to create common-ground with those around me, so I can't be that strange. Anyways what I am really trying to get at is this article. My pretty/prego friend and fellow blogger jackie posted this a few days ago and I felt so refreshed after reading it.

With
former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney both believed to be gearing up for a run for the presidency,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has again found itself
answering questions about what these two prominent members believe.

Post
reporter Sandhya Somashekhar wrote in a story published Tuesday that
Mormon leaders see the ascendancy of these and other Mormons (such as
convert Glenn Beck) as a sign "that the community has finally
'arrived,'" but added "researchers say there remains a deep mistrust of
Mormons and that little has changed in public opinion to suggest that
voters will be more open this year than they were in 2007." If
conservative Christian and Mormons share a political agenda, why do
suspicions still plague Mormon politicians? Do media personalities such
as Glenn Beck help or hurt the cause?

God works in mysterious
ways to perform his wonders. Old Testament prophets complained about the
instruments God chose, but God went on being God despite their
complaints. 2012 is likely to give Americans two serious candidates for
president that are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints (LDS). Many conservative Christians, for good and bad, get
inspiration and information from Glenn Beck, who is also a member of the
Church.

Should Americans be concerned? Bluntly, no, though those
of us who are not Mormon should be depressed that such a small group
has outworked, out thought, and out hustled us. Mormon success should
spur traditional Christians, who outnumber Mormons by tens of millions,
to do better.

Sadly ignorance of the LDS Church is widespread in
our culture. Despite over a century of faithful citizenship and
embracing family values, stupid stereotypes remain. Magically much of
the media easily remembers Glenn Beck is Mormon, but keeps forgetting
that Harry Reid is as well. Sacred garments on Christians and Jews are
normal, but sacred garments on Mormons?

Of course, there is a
vocal fringe of Americans who think any religious person is nuts. These
equal-opportunity offenders can be ignored as invincibly ignorant. They
don't respect Mormons, because they don't respect Christians, Jews,
Muslims, or anybody who thinks we are more than computers made out of
meat.

There is another group, sadly not so tiny, that cannot be
friends or co-laborers with anyone who does not share their theology or
ideology. This sectarianism is the bane of any movement, but most
Americans know we can learn and work with almost anyone if they share
our values in some area.

There are no good reasons not to
consider voting for a Mormon. Theologically, I disagree with the faith's
teachings. My professional speaking has included pointed academic
encounters with LDS professors about our areas of disagreement.
Simultaneously, serious disagreements have not prevented our making
common cause on many issues.

Studying Mormonism closely did not
make me a Mormon, to the contrary, but it did give an abiding respect
for certain things the LDS Church gets right. They have demonstrated
things worth knowing. If this is a Mormon moment in American history,
there is a reason for it. Their virtues have particular civic relevance
today and their theological vices (from my point of view) do not. The
LDS I know love America , urge good behavior on their members, and
promote many traditional American values. If that bothers you, vote for
somebody else--the LDS will fight and die in the American forces for
your right to do so.

The LDS church made North America sacred
space. With Native Americans and Spanish mission builders in California ,
they have loved this land and made it part of their story. The Mormon
revelation, whatever its origins, is centered in North America .

Part
of that epic is actual Mormon history: born, bred, and thriving in the
United States of America . Mormonism is old enough by American standards
to feel "ancient," but young enough to make the founding stories easy
for Americans to understand. Joseph Smith received his revelations
closer than four score years after the American founding. Any literate
English speaker can read founding Mormon documents without the need for
much translation or scholarly explanation, but knowledge of American
history is vital. Most Americans look abroad for holy land," but
Mormons look here.

This gives them a passion for this place
difficult for anyone else to match. Other religious groups must work
harder to match this sense of place that the LDS Church has naturally.

A
great weakness of our lives today is isolation and loneliness.
Mormonism is one solution to that problem for many. LDS Church services
to members and communities are a free market model for private charity. I
have personally seen LDS charity help families that were not LDS, but
related to a member The charity gave work-centered help that met needs
without sacrificing dignity. The commendable community found in
Mormonism should be imitated not attacked.

For good and bad,
Mormonism is deeply American. Born on our frontier and nurtured in our
wilderness, American values are Mormon values. And yet, no LDS swaggers
into the culture assuming he will be accepted. Mormons know the
imperfections of American life. An American mob murdered their founder.
As a result of their history, Mormons have a thoughtful and subtle take
on religion in the public square. This last week Dallin H. Oaks, of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave an important speech at the Chapman
University School of law in California on religious liberty.

I am
sure Glenn Beck would agree that more Americans should read that
speech, even if it meant turning off his program. Oaks, a professor and
judge, not Beck, represents the best civic face of the LDS Church .

If
this is, as the Washington post suggests, a Mormon moment, it is
because Mormons clung to truths now unfashionable and addressed
questions others ignore. They suffered exile in their own land,
persecution, and the need to change important ideas to be part of the
broader culture. This American experience taught them good lessons about
America . Being right is powerful and most LDS are right on many of
today's big issues: the nature of family, the protection of life,
defense of religious liberty, and republican values.

Traditional
Christians should learn from their example and patriotic Americans
should celebrate their effective service. Mormons like Harry Reid will
never get my vote, because his policy ideas do not match with mine, but a
Mormon like Mitt Romney could, because I support his good ideas.

Providence
works in peculiar ways and it is particularly odd for an evangelical
and orthodox Christian to be grateful for this Mormon moment in American
history. But if a biblical prophet could celebrate the pagan emperor
Cyrus for being God's man to free his people, surely we can praise our
Mormon countrymen for sounding a trumpet call to rally America to life
and liberty .

Saturday, April 16, 2011

so when my mom, sister, and niece were visiting a sad sadness of a thing happened.

my niece set her purse down on top of her american girl doll in the kids department of h&m to try on a pair of shoes and someone took it.

it was heart breaking.

I mean I literally cried for her.

sure it was just a little kid purse but it was filled with her treasures:

her doll's glasses, her little wallet full of coins, some candy, and a digital camera I had given her for her trip.

she loves to take pictures and had been snapping away the whole trip.

those can never be replaced.

even as Im writing this anger is welling up inside me at the person who would take a pink cheetah print purse from the kids department.

I know it seems like a silly thing to get so angry about, but its not just about the purse. on the way home it occurred to me that no matter what you do you cannot protect your kids (or those you love) from this world. you can try and try but sometimes life will win and something bad will happen that you cannot change or fix.

when I thought about how much I love my niece and how much I will love my children I started to panic. it was like a box of bricks fell on me while I sat there on the bus.

how will I ever survive when they are hurting?

{by panic I mean I could not let this whole thing go. I lost sleep over this even after my family had gone home and had forgotten about the dumb purse.}

and I finally remembered my niece telling my mom, "maybe whoever took it, needed it more than I did"

my heart melted. you can not protect them, but you can teach them.

you can love them and help them understand how much God loves them. because the truth is we can't avoid sadness, even when its not our fault... when we did everything right. bad things will happen and you can't save anyone from that, but you can help them be equip to move through it.

and that's what really matters. not that she has a cute cheetah purse and gets to take pictures with her camera, but that she knows how much God loves her and even when she is hurt he hasn't forgotten her.

"I believe in pink.
I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.
I believe in kissing, kissing a lot.
I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong.
I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls.
I believe that tomorrow is another day
and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn